Mojave Love Song is a 14-minute video and musical composition inspired by the Mojave Desert. The piece is a collaboration between Southern California visual artist Naida Osline and São Paulo-based composer Rodrigo Felicissimo, created through a shared fascination with the desert’s physical and spiritual presence. 

While in residence at UC Riverside in 2022, Felicissimo—drawing on the legacy of Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos—sought to musically interpret California’s arid landscapes. He connected with Osline, whose photographic work often explores the intersections of nature, mysticism, and human impact. At the time, Osline had been documenting the newly designated Avi Kwa Ame (Spirit Mountain) National Monument with artist and writer Tyler Stallings.

Osline’s horizon photographs became musical scores: Felicissimo traced their contours onto onion skin paper to shape five compositions for flute, piano, and shakuhachi. After returning to Brazil, he recorded the music and sent it to Osline, who created a visual response using footage she and Stallings gathered in the Mojave. Stallings contributed the titles, using inclusive language to suggest a shared relationship with the land. 

The resulting work unfolds in five movements, each expressing a phase of an emotional and ecological love song—from the intimacy of breath and sky to the enduring presence of petroglyphs, water, and wildfire. Mojave Love Song is a meditation on connection, impermanence, and the desert’s profound sense of time.